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Birch Bark Canoe
Second Year-Group Project
There were about 28 of us working on this canoe. Following traditional techniques, we made this canoe completely sans power tools. We used natural materials (birch bark, tree roots, bear fat, and cedar strips), and used a hatchet and animal bone to cut wood and puncture holes. An Elder named Marcel (seen on the left of the cover image) taught us the importance of giving back to the earth, traditions that involved paying respect to the materials that we took from the earth, and indigenous philosophies that will stay with me for life. Bonus: we tried the canoe on the water, and it stayed intact.